


turn as they go

by meliebee



Category: WandaVision (TV), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Family Dynamics, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Post-Canon, interdimensional twins for the win, it's a maximoff family special!!, it's loving the maximoffs hours, rejecting canon blatantly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29879691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliebee/pseuds/meliebee
Summary: Monica takes off Ralph's necklace and—oh—he’s Peter again.
Relationships: Billy Kaplan & Tommy Shepherd, Peter Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff
Comments: 47
Kudos: 519





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so. idk what marvel is playing at but it's DUMB and i don't like it. enjoy this somewhat-fix-it fic for the soul xx
> 
> inspiration for this: brave as a noun by AJJ; gimme love by joji ("do things turn black and grey as they go"); sweet dreams by eurythmics (duh); and like every other "fietro = peter" story on ao3

Monica takes off Ralph's necklace and— _oh_ , oh _shit_ —he’s Peter again.

He throws his hands up, says, “Woah! Don’t kill me!” Then he slows time, scoots out from under her, and darts across the room before she can decide if she wants to listen.

Monica blinks, visibly confused, and says, “Ralph?”

“Who?” Says Peter, then, “Oh yeah, Ralph Bohner, hah, nah. That’s not me.”

“I thought you’d have lost your speed,” says Monica faintly.

Peter squints at her. “I’m a mutant,” he says. “I can’t _lose_ my speed.” The closest he’s ever come was when Apocalypse trapped his leg in stone and broke in two places, or when Jean had a brief moment of power-addiction and flung him across a street—not experiences he wants to retry.

Monica squints back at him, and shakes her head slowly. “A what?”

Peter darts across the room, going through the files—Ralph Bohner was in witness protection, apparently—Peter doesn’t know how there are pictures of him with dark, unnatural hair but he’s willing to bet it has to do with the crazy witch who froze his face between her hands and whispered words that made the whole world go blurry.

“Mutant,” explains Peter when he’s searched all the drawers for interesting clues and come up short. Monica looks dizzy. “That’s what I am. Wanda, too.” Now that he’s said her name, he can remember her, and it hits him like a train to the chest.

 _Wanda_.

His sister who’s not his sister. The witch is the one who used him as a puppet, but Wanda was the one in his head saying _please be my brother please please please, I want to believe this, I want you to be him_. (Peter’s real memories warped a little to make it work. Trick or treating plus orphanage dinners. Little Wanda with long red hair. No other siblings.)

Oh, Wanda. Wanda whose grief was a crushing weight on his mind every time he managed to surface, but who kissed her son’s foreheads and scrunched her nose when she was happy, who tucked her arm into Peter’s elbow and called her robot husband _Vis_.

“Wanda’s a mutant?”

“Probably,” says Peter, because what else could she be? “My name is Peter Maximoff. Wanda wanted me to be her dead brother—Pietro, right? And my twin sister’s name was Wendy, and she was as mutant as they come.”

“Woah,” says Monica. her head tilts back a bit as she reels. Peter reels a bit as well, unused to mentioning Wendy, unused to anyone knowing that she existed at all.

The thing is, Peter knows what it’s like to be a twin, and what it’s like to lose a twin, and what it’s like to have to relearn your whole identity when it isn’t wrapped up with someone else’s.

(Wendy wasn’t much like Wanda. She was angry whenever she wasn’t blindingly happy, wore dark clothes and dark makeup and had a wild mess of curls that she dyed bright red. She loved rock music and bright colours and she was just as loud as Peter.)

(Wendy had been having other people’s nightmares every night since they were five years old. When they were nine, the nightmares started bleeding into the rest of her life—hearing other people’s thoughts, sending sparks twirling from her fingers, making furniture fly across the room unintentionally.)

(She died when they were twelve. Peter couldn’t save her, even with how fast he could run, how slow he could make time. All that power and all that rage, never having been taught the control that could have stopped her sensory overloads, Wendy died in a fire that ate up first their house and then every house on the street in a matter of seconds.)

“So if Wanda’s a—mutant—” says Monica, drawing Peter back into the present moment, and the present world, “and you’re a mutant, what’s Agnes?”

“Yeah, yikes,” says Peter. “Dunno. I kind of assumed she was a witch, considering her whole—” here he gestures at his face, the shape of long curls and glowing eyes, wiggling his fingers— “and, you know, she’s the one who spelled me into Ralph, I think.”

Monica tilts her head, and he elaborates, “Wanda’s the one who brought me here, but Agnes is the one who made me into Ralph.”

“Wanda brought you here?”

“Yeah,” says Peter. The memory’s not a good one. It had happened when he’d been headed up to Xavier’s School, hands in his pockets as he walked along with green hills, back after a few weeks stretching his legs across the country.

(Peter doesn’t mean to be as undependable as he is, but he can’t help it. Every few months the urge to run starts to burn at his legs and he can’t drown it out no matter what he tries.)

(After Wendy died, Peter didn’t go home for months. Once he was back, Marya, who he calls his Mom even though she’s biologically his Aunt, never wanted him to leave—tried to keep him safe in her basement, where the forces that killed Wendy couldn’t touch to him.)

He’d been cresting the hills, raised a hand to wave at a few of the kiddies who stared and pointed excitedly from their windows—Peter’s not really a teacher but he takes over PE every time he’s at the School and he’s always loved kids—and that’s when he’d heard a voice right in his head. Charles and Jean have never been able to communicate telepathically with Peter, since his mind moves so much fast than theirs, so it caught him off guard and he faltered in place.

 _I’m a twin,_ the voice had said, and of course Peter knew his twin was long dead but she was the only one who’d ever brushed his mind before.

“Wendy?” He had asked, feeling crazy, turning in place, and in return heard the same voice say _Pietro_ louder and clearer than before, and it felt as though something had hooked itself into his chest, deep into his heart, and it started to pull.

Peter had tripped over his own feet, gasped out “Where are you?” even though he knew it wasn’t Wanda, but there was someone who needed him and he could _feel it,_ and then suddenly there was red mist rapidly forming before him, around him, everywhere he could see.

He knew that magic, knew it just as well as his own mutation. The hook in his chest was pulling at him, tugging him forward, and when he stretched out his arms the red magic swirled around him and swallowed them up. One more solid _pull_ and then Peter was falling forward, into the vortex of red magic, and when he managed to find his feet again he was staring directly into the face of a woman with brown hair who tilted her chin and said, “Oh, how perfect and unexpected!”

Peter had blinked at her in confusion, battling with the sudden barrage of _WandaWandaWanda_ in his mind, who was crying out _PietroPietro, I miss you I need you where are you?_ The woman with brown hair reached out, quick as a flash, gripped the sides of his face, and started to chant—and then Peter was Pietro and he needed to go visit his long-lost sister.

“Yeah, Wanda brought me here,” says Peter to Monica, who’s still looking at him like she doesn’t know what to think. “I don’t know where _here_ is, but I get the feeling it’s a long way from home.” Whatever home even is to the guy who’s in his late twenties but still hasn’t told his own father that they’re related, barely visits his Mom, and needs to run away every few months or he goes crazy.

“Okay,” says Monica, visibly shelving all this away for later. “But you’re still fast, and you’re—well.”

Peter shrugs. “I’m not Wanda’s brother,” he says, because he’s not. “But in a way, I kind of feel like I am.” He runs a hand through his hair, all messed up from Ralph’s beanie. Pietro was put into his head for a bit and the guy loved his sister, and Peter misses his own sister, and besides all that he feels a kind of camaraderie with the woman who pulled him out of his life and into hers.

Wanda's world was twisted and fake and wrong and not entirely hers— because it’s Agatha who controlled Peter's mouth even if Wanda was the one in his head—and Peter hates to be controlled, hates to be tied down, hates to be a puppet and forced to move at a pace he can’t dictate, but. _But_.

The X-Men care for Peter but use him when they need him and, yeah, he still remembers that they just watch every time he goes flying through the air. His Mom cares for him but she’s tired and he can’t blame her. Lorna, his cousin, loves Peter but _distantly_ , and she prefers to forget who exactly raised her until high school.

His father is a terrorist-murderer-psychopath who watched Peter get held up screaming by his hair for execution without a care and, oh yeah, _doesn’t know he’s Peter’s father in the first place,_ which is just fine, since Peter doesn’t really want a man like that—a man who views mutants as pawns or possessions just like Charles does—to have any kind of claim on him anyway. 

It’s possible that Peter has some unresolved issues with the X-Men. It’s also possible that when Peter got given an invitation to be a part of Wanda’s family, he didn’t mind saying yes.

Peter hated being controlled but he didn’t drive himself crazy trying to shake off her voice in his head—she’s familiar to him, safe, even though she’s not really technically his sister. He didn’t mind being loved by her or loving her back; having a sister to tease and to hug and to care about. He liked teasing Vision and being an uncle to Billy and Tommy; he liked being a part of their family.

They’re a _weird_ family, though, yeah. As they head towards the town square, Monica gives himt he rundown on what Westview is hiding, and it’s a lot more than Peter was expecting.

The kids are a week old, apparently, and the husband is a dead robot. Wanda is a deeply traumatised Sokovian “enhanced individual” who created a sitcom reality to try and silence her grief. (Peter’s the abducted replacement for her dead brother, used as a puppet by the next-door witch—he thinks he fits in okay.)

She’s not his sister, but when Peter and Monica turn the corner to find Wanda facing off two sets of enemies, his heart hitches in his chest. There are tanks, and soldiers with guns, all pointed at Wanda and Vision and the boys.

Vision says something to the boys about not having prepared them for this, and Wanda says “but you were born for it” and then Peter’s leaving Monica behind to race forward and stand at the boys’ other side.

All four of them jump at his sudden appearance, and Peter grins. “Hey,” he says, “sorry I’m late. Only just got the witch out of my head.”

“Uncle P!” The boys cry, but then both of them shoot looks towards their mother, as if asking if they’re allowed to be excited.

“Pietro,” says Wanda warily, red flickering into her eyes—“I know you’re not him. Who are you?”

Peter shrugs, lifting his lips to one side. “I’m Peter Maximoff,” he says. “I’m family.” He feels her prodding at his mind, and lets it happen, showing her glimpses—Wendy, aged ten and still tugging him from place to place; Wendy’s grave; Agnes (Agatha?) when she spelled him out of his mind.

“Peter,” says Wanda, swallowing harshly. “Okay. Boys, you know your uncle.”

Tommy grins widely at him, and Billy smiles brightly, and yeah, Peter does love these kids.

The fight kicks off, and Vision flies around with a creepy white version of himself while Wanda throws magic at Agatha up in the air, leaving Billy and Tommy and Peter to take out the military. Tommy steals their guns and Billy freezes them in place—they’re young and powerful and they’ve been taught a bit of control by the only two people alive who know exactly how their powers work.

Peter is speeding even further, slashing the tires of trucks and stealing the guns from soldiers all around the block, then moving civilians away from the centre of destruction in the centre of town and bringing them near the outskirts of Westview or into buildings with open doors—so he isn’t expecting the gunshots.

He arrives just in time to see Monica throw herself in front of a dozen shots that are _going through her body._ Peter falters in place, says, “huh,” and then darts forward to divert a stray bullet from grazing Tommy’s arm.

Time slows down again. Billy’s little blue cloud of magic drops a bullet to the ground, Monica turns around and says “Nice tricks!” which makes Billy smile shyly and say, “I like yours too.”

“ _Jesus Christ almighty_ , I leave you alone for two minutes,” says Peter, reaching out and pulling both boys into his chest, cupping the backs of their heads and running his hands over their backs to check they’re safe and sound, feeling like he just lost years off his life. 

Tommy and Billy wind their arms around his chest, not quite as unshaken as they seemed a second ago—still just kids. Peter squeezes tighter and locks eyes with Monica. “Thank you,” he mouths, and she smiles at him—and then a woman wearing glasses drives a huge truck into the man who fired the gun.

“Holy shit,” says Peter faintly.

“Mom’s gonna get mad at you for saying that,” comes Billy’s little voice, and then Tommy saying “only if she _knows_ , Billy,” which draws Peter’s attention up into the sky which has become an alarming red thunderstorm.

Vision emerges from whatever the hell he was doing in that building, cries out _Boys!_ and Peter lets go of the kids so they can go running into their dad’s arms. Vision presses kisses to their heads, holding them close and tucking their faces away from the destruction around them, and Peter—feels horrible, really, knowing what he knows now about Vision.

He shares a glance with Monica, and then heads over to the little family while Monica jogs over to the woman in the truck.

“Peter,” says Vision. “Thank you for keeping them safe.”

Peter laughs, a little awkwardly. “Hey, man,” he says, “they don’t really need my help—you’ve raised two little superheroes.” That makes Tommy grin widely and peek his face out of his dad’s clothes.

“Thank you regardless,” says Vision, and the weight in the words makes Peter aware that they’re not just talking about protecting the boys in one firefight anymore.

“Always,” he says, voice softer than he intended it to be.

Eventually, Wanda comes floating down from the sky, dropping Agatha onto the ground like a puppet whose strings are all cut—the analogy is vindictively pleasing for Peter, who thinks this all really could have been averted if Agatha hadn’t taken his whole life captive when he’d just wanted to help Wanda out.

They talk, and Wanda’s got a whole new outfit on—whatever happened up there in the clouds has changed her, settled her somewhat. Agatha becomes Agnes, and then Wanda turns around and the boys go flying into her arms.

Peter knows what’s coming, now. The world inside Westview is starting to flicker.

Wanda comes up to him, with her boys tucked under each arm, and says “Peter.”

“Hey, sis,” says Peter. There’s this sudden wage of awful grief that just rises in his chest and swallows up his heart. (It’s all really a lot—the reminders of Wendy, the losses that Wanda feels, and now the awareness that Wanda’s going to lose everything all over again—and Peter kind of is too.)

A silent understanding passes between them, and it’s the most seen Peter’s felt since Wendy died.

“Hey, c’mere,” he says, and holds out his arms—his nephews barrel into him instantly, Tommy speeding with a blur of green.

“Oof,” grunts Peter, dramatic on purpose, and the grief rises and rises, choking him. He squeezes them both tight and shuts his eyes for a second. “You did so good today,” he tells them. “Makin’ your Uncle P proud, huh?”

“Duh,” says Tommy.

“Duh,” echoes Billy, smiling, and Peter laughs.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it—you outshine us all. He ruffles their hair, pushing them forwards a little to look at them—ten years old, smiling, fresh-faced and not real. Not real.

Peter steps forward, cups Tommy’s head and presses a kiss to his forehead, then reaches for Billy and does the same. “Alright,” he says, pushing them towards their parents— “Go on.”

“Will we see you later?” Asks one of the twins, and Peter meets eyes with Wanda, who looks steadily back.

She smiles at her sons, taking their hands in her own. “Oh, you know your uncle,” she says.

Peter chuckles, and shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I always catch up.”

He waves goodbye, pretending the little calls of _See you later, Uncle P!_ don’t hurt as much as they do.

The walls of Wanda’s world begin to flicker as soon as she’s out of sight. Monica and the woman in glasses appear beside him, and Peter distracts himself by delighting in the sheer chaos that the woman in glasses emanates.

She’s holding on to Monica’s elbow, keeps getting sidetracked by patting her down in case any of those bullets did any damage, and grills peter for everything he can remember about his life in Westview.

She’s the first one to use the worlds “alternate dimension” and that shakes Peter, he’ll admit, a little more than he’s comfortable with.

“Mm, yeah,” Darcy says, “let’s not mention that to the general public or the good people at SWORD, hmm?”

Monica laughs and shakes her head and says, “Probably a good idea.”

Peter gets it, because he can imagine the reaction if his world knew someone had the power to rip through not only their own reality but _multiple realities_.

Darcy and Monica direct soldiers from place to place, waiting for someone called Jimmy and his backup, and then Darcy vanishes somewhere and Jimmy appears, and through all of it Peter waits for what he knows is coming.

He feels it the second it happens, the wave of red washing over everything in sight and leaving it—well, uglier, but as it was before Wanda tailored it to fit what she wanted. His clothes go back to what he’d been wearing before crossing realities, and he’s delighted to feel his silver jacket on his shoulders and the goggles in its pocket still intact.

Eventually, not long after the last of her magic fades, Wanda herself shows up. The people of Westview, those who didn’t get moved by Peter to the town’s outskirts, stare at her with accusing eyes as she walks evenly towards Monica.

Peter leans against the walls of a nearby building, and Monica offers Wanda the absolution and understanding that no one has before.

Wanda turns to leave, discarding her disguise for her new armour and crown, and that’s when Peter steps forward, at normal speed first and then at his own, appearing at her side in the blink of an eye.

“Wanda,” he says, and she falters as she takes in the sight of him dressed as he should be.

“Peter,” she says.

Peter smiles, though it’s an effort to do so. He’s not Pietro, and she’s not Wendy, but they’re still family. “I’m coming with you,” he tells her.

Wanda doesn’t shake her head, doesn’t say no, because maybe she knows him like he knows her. “I don’t know what the future holds,” she says, accent back in her voice. “I don’t know if I can get you back to your reality, or how to fix this, or what’s coming.”

Peter shrugs. “Hey,” he says, “No one does.” He reaches out, and grabs her hand, fingers folded over hers.

She looks down at their hands, and he squeezes. “Family is forever, Wanda.” He squeezes her hand again, and then pulls his goggles out and slip them onto his head. “I’m coming with you. Where’re we headed first?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED this is for you <3
> 
> lots of talking in this chapter but i have a plan for the rest of the story now so buckle up!

Wanda wants to read the Darkhold.

“Seems dangerous,” says Peter, who isn’t usually one to advise against dangerous things but thinks reading what’s nicknamed the _book of the damned_ counts as safely off-limits.

“I need to understand what I am,” says Wanda, sitting on the other end of the couch, knees tucked up in front of her chest.

The book is sitting in front of them on the couch table, and Peter squints at it as though he can imagine its secrets into being.

“Agatha said I’m meant to end the world,” Wanda continues. “I don’t want that. I need to figure out how to stop it.”

Peter sighs. It’s sound reasoning, but nothing is ever as simple as it seems. He doesn’t want Wanda to be her own self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s the first they’ve talked in hours, after running (in Peter’s case) and flying (in Wanda’s) all the way to Europe, where they’ve now settled into a tiny wooden cottage nestled amongst the mountains. Just a few hours to the south lie the borders to what was Sokovia—a country Peter has never heard of before this week but now understands the language to.

Peter nudges his foot out to tap it against Wanda’s leg. “Hey,” he says. “You’re not going to end the world.”

Wanda looks at him, and then away. He can still feel a connection to her, in the back of his mind—horrible grief pulsing out from her in waves, alongside a strange and muted kind of acceptance. She feels like she’s got nothing left— _almost_ nothing left, since Peter is still here and still loves her and still cares.

Peter misses his nephews. He even misses his dorky brother-in-law.

“I’m gonna make us some food,” says Peter, and in the time it takes for Wanda to nod, he runs to the closest town and snatch up the ingredients to make a soup. He’s not usually one for healthy eating, but Wanda needs comfort food and he knows how to make soup so that’s what they’re getting.

While he bustles around in the kitchen, zipping from cupboard to cupboard, procuring pots and knives and cutting boards, Wanda leans back against the couch and watches him.

“Peter,” she calls out softly, and he turns to face her, apron tied around his waist, stolen from someone’s washing line. He hasn’t stolen in a while but old habits die hard and they need some form of supplies in the cabin so it’ll have to do for now.

“Yeah?”

Wanda swallows and shifts in place. “Can you… tell me about yourself? Your world? You know so much about me, and I…”

Peter quirks a smile in her direction. “Don’t sell yourself short, you know me better than most,” he says reassuringly, which is true. “In my world I was an X-Man—the name for mutants who worked for Professor X, Charles Xavier. Mostly we just tried to help other mutants in danger, or fought the mutants who want to wipe out humans, or dealt with threats from other mutants or governments or whatever.”

He remembers the memories Wanda tried to make him think were his own, of how excited Pietro was to consider himself an Avenger; one difference between them is that it took Peter years to care about helping other people and not just distracting himself from the boredom caused by how slow the world moves. 

“My dad—Magneto—he was the head of the Brotherhood.” Peter pulls a face. “I freed him from the Pentagon when I was sixteen—Charles didn’t tell me what he was in for—and then got to watch him announce his plans for world domination on live TV. Not exactly the ideal first impression. Gave my cousin Lorna a fear of metal for a week.”

Wanda laughs, and it’s a quiet and throaty noise but it’s still a laugh and Peter can’t himself from feeling proud that he caused it. “Your father,” she says. “Magneto?”

“Oh yeah,” Peter sighs. “Crazy dude. Real name’s Erik. I came to find him ten years after all that but I came too late.” Wanda tilts her head, knowing there’s more, and he elaborates: “There was a whole thing at the time with this crazy Apocalypse guy. I saved the kids in the School from an explosion—” well, not everyone, “but by the time I eventually got to talk to Erik, it was all just… I don’t know, so messy. He’d had a wife and kids and they’d been killed, and he was fighting alongside Apocalypse, and he did eventually switch sides but he just stood there and watched when Apocalypse tried to get me killed, y’know?”

He’s chopping the carrots a little too violently, so he abandons them to start boiling water for the potatoes, his hands blurring. “Anyway after all of that Erik left to start this haven for mutants called Genosha—and I stayed with the X-Men, going on missions and teaching the kids PE—and I saw him a couple times afterwards, since one of the School’s students had a bad reaction to a power-enhancing substance and tried to fight the whole world—but even after all that got sorted and Jean calmed down I just… I don’t know.”

“Erik,” comes Wanda’s thoughtful voice. She’s quieter than she was in Westview. He wants to show her she’s always safe with him, so he’s been trying not to ramble, but in the same way, when he's around her he feels safe enough to ramble as much as he wants. “My father’s name was Oleg.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Peter, because he does. In a flash, he’s sitting on the couch, looking at her. “Just because we don’t share fathers doesn’t… I’m still your family, Wanda. You’re still mine.”

She sends him a closed-lip smile, but it’s a victory. Wanda reaches out and clasps one of his hands with her own. “I know,” she assures him. “I just… my father is dead, and yours isn’t, and I’m sorry that you haven’t been able to tell him that you’re his son.”

Peter opens his mouth, and then closes it. He’s had opportunities to tell Erik, really he has, but there hasn’t been one moment that Peter has thought Erik would react well. He would be angry, or uncaring, and Peter can’t decide which would be worse. Besides all that, even, is the fact that no matter how much Charles loves Erik and sings his virtues, Erik doesn’t mind hurting people, and Peter _does_.

“Yeah,” he says eventually, quieter than he intends to be.

Wanda squeezes his hand again, and then leans back, pulling a blanket over her legs. “Tell me about your sister?”

Peter blinks. Time slows as he runs towards and around the kitchen, checking on his potatoes, cutting up the leek, chopping onion, finding a few new blankets—“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” says Wanda, apologetic, and Peter vibrates in place.

“It’s not that,” he says, because it’s not, it’s just that he’s never told anyone about Wendy before, and he doesn’t know how.

“Pietro was always flirting,” says Wanda. “He liked to make people smile.” She chuckles, and her voice is rueful. “We had so little—growing up the way we did, after our parents died, in the orphanage, or group homes, and then eventually on the streets. Even with that, he would steal these useless trinkets to try and impress girls. He stole a lot, to sell at pawn shops. I would read people’s fortunes as a _drabardi_. Our mother’s side of the family were Roma, so I knew how to sell the practice, even if it felt insulting. Was yours also?”

Peter shakes his head slowly, sitting on the couch now and facing Wanda. “Erik’s Jewish, though, and so was my mom. I grew up with Hannukah but now I don’t even pray.”

“Pietro was the one who got us into Hydra,” says Wanda. “I suppose we were easy to convince—young and just out of the foster system and so angry at the world. They had all these promises for the way they would make things better, the way they would operate—we didn’t even know they were Hydra until we were in way too deep to back out." She shakes her head.

"Pietro had always been… fast, and he kept me safe when were young because of it, but after the experiments at Hydra he became just a blur to look at. Now, feeling how much my abilities have grown and grown every year, I wonder how much faster he might have become if he hadn’t died. Seeing how fast you are, how much you can do… I wonder.”

“Yeah,” says Peter. His voice is a little croaky. “Wendy—I know what you mean. She was so young when she died. We were born with our mutations but they only really manifested properly after we were ten, and Wendy never understood hers. She didn’t know how to control them at all.” In this world, mutants aren’t a concept people have named yet—Wanda’s called _an enhanced individual_ even though they both know the power within her wasn’t given to her by a stone.

He clears his throat. In the same way that Peter is and isn’t similar to Pietro, Wanda is and isn’t similar to Wendy. “She loved to play games of chance before her mutation really developed. Tarot cards, and poker, and heads-or-tails… she couldn’t explain it, but she loved to try and control the outcome. Our Mom was convinced she’d become a gambler. We used to sneak out to concerts after I started getting fast, and I would steal us band merch. She liked art, too, even if most of it was pretty dark—liked to create things. She used to get into fights at school for me, protecting me.”

He blinks at his fingers, frozen in place for once. “I got so used to living without her,” he says. “When I was a kid I couldn’t image my life without her but I’m twenty-six now and I haven’t said her name in years.”

“Love perseveres,” says Wanda quietly. Peter, words stuck in his throat, can only nod. Time passes and memories fade but love perseveres. Then he jumps up, presses a hasty kiss to Wanda’s hair, and returns to his soup. It simmers away on the stove, and Wanda cracks open the Darkhold.

The cabin is warm, and the soup is cooking. Outside, the air is clear and clean, with trees bracketing the cabin and mountains all around them.

Later, Peter will go get them clothes, soft and wool to keep them warm, and he’ll get a TV too to try and catch up with time. In this world, which is decades ahead of what Peter is used to, he’s behind the times for the first time in his life. But he’s not alone. He’s got purpose (keep Wanda from getting sucked into her own head again) and he’s got Wanda herself—he’s got family.

For now, Wanda reads the first page of the Darkhold and Peter makes them dinner.

*

After that first day, they don’t talk about their pasts again, not really.

Peter will say, “Wendy had a sweet tooth too.”

Or Wanda will say, “You really are good with kids.”

Peter says, “I’m glad you made Agnes feel exactly what she did to me.”

Wanda asks, “How did you meet Monica?”

They don’t talk about how their biological twins died. They don’t talk about Westview or the people within it. They don’t talk about SWORD. They don’t talk about dead Vision or white Vision.

They don’t talk about Billy and Tommy when Wanda wakes up crying every night. Peter holds her up as she wails _my babies, my babies, my beautiful children, come back to me,_ and he whispers apologies into her hair as she sobs and sobs.

*

Peter makes friends with their neighbour. She’s an old woman whose pictures of grandchildren line her one-bedroom house, who speaks Russian with a thick Czech accent. She keeps goats outside her front door.

Wanda learns how to make an astral projection, which takes the form of herself in her full Scarlet Witch garb, hovering in the air and flipping through the pages of the Darkhold. She leaves the projection to soak up the book’s knowledge and starts to occasionally join Peter when he visits the nearby towns to buy groceries or clothes, or having tea with their neighbour as she regales them with gossip about her extended family.

More often, Wanda will go on long walks through nature, Peter shooting alongside her, too impatient to match her pace.

“The book is trying to get in my head,” she tells him one day, ducking under a low-hanging tree branch.

Peter shoots her an alarmed look. “Do you need to stop reading it?”

Wanda shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I can handle it.” This is a little too reminiscent of her Westview mantra of _I can fix it, I have everything under control, it’s fine._

“Hey,” says Peter. “Wanda. If you need to stop, stop, okay? That book is powerful for a reason. Don’t lose yourself in it.”

Wanda smiles at him. “I won’t,” she says. “I’m stronger than it.” She bumps her shoulder with his, since he’s slowed enough for her to do so. The words _I have you_ remain unspoken but they’re felt nevertheless.

She doesn’t tell him everything that the book contains, but she shares some of it, and he can see the change in her—she’s a bit steadier, a lot more powerful—or rather, she channels her power in more visible ways. She sits on the carpet in the living room while Peter busies himself with his latest hobbies (knitting, cooking, repairing their neighbour’s faulty appliances) and she practices spells and runework.

Peter gets a new jacket (leather!) and Wada sews runes into its lining before she lets him wear it out, clothing him in her protection as best as she can. Along every window and all the doors, she carves signs into the wood with the pocketknife he stole for her. At night she stands under the moon and chants quietly while Peter stands guard. The red magic he’s become used to grows brighter and brighter—it is kind when it brushes against his skin, tingling, and he knows that maybe others Wanda and what she is becoming, but he doesn’t.

He can’t fear his sister. Not when he sees her with her hair pulled into a messy bun, nearly dozing off into her latkes; or using her magic to mold clay into pots; or going on hikes through the woods and staring wide-eyed at the wildlife they encounter and taping his arm to make him pay attention.

She’s still his sister.

(Distantly, he wonders what Erik or Charles would think of Wanda. Mutants in his world were so often either shuffled into Charles’ home, pulled into Magneto’s cause, or forced to fend for themselves in a largely hostile world. What would they think of Wanda, who is so much more powerful than them, who learns new aspects of her power every day? Would they fear her? Control her? Want her as an ally or view her as a threat?)

(Peter has the quiet realisation that if it ever came down to it, he’d choose her over them.)

*

A couple of weeks have passed since Westview fell.

Wanda doesn’t wake up screaming every night anymore, and she’s almost halfway through reading the Darkhold, though Peter gets the idea that it's not something you ever really stop learning from. Their cabin has herbs hanging from the ceiling, runes carved into its walls, and a TV in the living room equipped with Netflix that Peter’s become somewhat obsessed with. He and Wanda watch TV every night- no sitcoms, and nothing dark, but they really like Parks and Recreation. 

He returns to the cabin early one morning after stretching his legs (visiting Germany to buy fresh bread) with his leather jacket on and goggles propped up on his head, calling out “Wanda?” as he steps over the threshold.

Wanda appears in front of him in an instant—the astral projection is gone, and she’s wearing what it was, hair wild and curly behind her headpiece, eyes wide open and bright red.

“Woah,” says Peter, “Wanda?” He darts away to put the bread in the kitchen and he’s back before she’s even opened her mouth. He holds her arms loosely in his hands, peering into her face, bringing one hand up to cup her face. “What’s going on?”

“Peter,” she gasps. “Peter, I heard the boys. They’re calling me—they need help.”

Yet again, Peter’s world drops away from underneath his feet, his blood running suddenly cold.

“What?” He chokes out, confused, heart pounding.

Wanda raises her hand to his forehead, touching lightly between his eyes, and he hears them loud and clear.

_Help! Help, please!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things to clarify:  
> \- in the comics, Pietro and Wanda are Roma and Jewish. I have a LOT of issues with the MCU/XU erasing this, so I reintroduced it, but that being said the characters are played by white actors and I am neither Romani nor Jewish, so if this is offensive in any way please let me know!!!  
> \- I made Wanda and Peter 26 because the mcu/xu literally have no consistency with ages anyway  
> \- also, as I said last chapter, dark phoenix (which i haven't even seen) was in this AU just jean discovering her past and going a bit unhinged for a week but she's fine now and charles is still the professor :)
> 
> tell me what you thought!!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> as always pls leave me any thoughts you have besties <3 don't be shy


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